


Falling

by graceless_wolf



Series: Falling [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, also, and has flashbacks, dean and cas grew up together uwu, dean has a v bad experience in the woods that could be similar to a panic attack, ie. he goes to a v bad place, its for an au w a frieeend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceless_wolf/pseuds/graceless_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas holds Dean tightly when they’re lying in his bed and talking about the things they want to do, and the places they want to see. </p><p>“The Taj Mahal,” Dean says, because he’s thirteen and that’s the farthest from Kansas he can think.</p><p>Cas nods thoughtfully, chin bumping against Dean’s hair. He doesn’t answer for a second.</p><p>“The stars.”</p><p>“What?” Dean asks. And he laughs, but he thinks maybe, maybe he knows what Cas means. Cas thinks Dean does, too, because he doesn’t elaborate. They fall asleep like that, breathing in sync and intertwined, and dreaming about the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Falling** ; _present participle of fall (Verb)_

-          To move downward, typically rapidly, and freely without control

 

 

Dean is five when he meets Cas. They’re neighbors, though Dean wonders why a family with such nice things lives in a house that small in a neighborhood like theirs. He likes Castiel, though. Gabriel is annoying, but he’s not around a lot because he goes to elementary school and Dean and Cas are starting first grade when the summer ends. Michael and Luce, the two oldest, fight a lot, but Dean can tell that they mean well, because they look at Castiel like Dean’s dad looks at him. They sometimes look at each other a little funny, but Dean chalks it up to them being a close family (he is five, after all.)

 

They spend hours exploring the small woods behind their homes. They catch frogs, and carve their names into a white oak with one of Dean’s dad’s pocketknives. Castiel is the greatest person Dean knows, he thinks, except maybe his dad, but he doesn’t count.

 

*

 

Dean is eight when his mom dies. Sam is two, almost three, and Dean carries him outside while the flames lick at his heels. Cas is standing out on the street, trying to fight his way past firefighters when Dean sees him.

 

“Cas!” Dean yells, tightening his grip on Sam and glaring at the firemen who try and take his little brother. Cas is there, suddenly, wrapping his arms around Dean and Sam and crushing them to his chest.

 

“’M sorry, Dean,” he chokes, like somehow this is all his fault.

 

It’s not, Dean knows, but he later learns that the fire was started by a distant cousin that Castiel’s father had disowned, who had gotten the address wrong and thought he was torching the Novak’s home. Not the Winchester’s.

 

Dean lost his mother that night, and in a way, his father, too. But he gains family in Cas, who’s by his side every day and most nights. He gains family in Gabriel, who, though he has a predisposition to torture Dean and Sam with pranks, is quick to realize when it’s been a bad day for the youngest Winchester, and the two disappear into Gabriel’s room to talk. He gains family in Michael and Lucifer, who teach him how to cook his mother’s recipes, and bandage cuts and bruises, and accept Dean’s lies when he tells them they came from falls, even when they can still smell his father’s whiskey staining Dean’s last clean shirt.

 

*

 

Dean is 13 when his dad thinks he’s spending too much time with “that Novak boy.” He leaves Sam with Bobby, Ellen, and Jo, and drags Dean camping for a week, determined to teach him to shoot a gun.

 

Dean likes shooting at targets. He likes the methodical, relaxing routine of preparing a round, and cleaning the weapon afterwards. He likes the way his dad nods after Dean hits the center of the target, like maybe he’s just a little prouder of Dean than he used to be.

 

He doesn’t like the killing.

 

His dad makes him shoot rabbits, and they’re fast, but he does it. The rabbits aren’t so bad. They’re irritating, and they eat Cas’ cabbages. He doesn’t mind it so much. He misses Cas, and seeing the rabbit pelts remind him in a way of the way Castiel would huff a breath when he saw the damage done to his little garden and mutter something about rabbits, or snails, or caterpillars.

 

It’s when his dad spots a deer that the problem begins. It’s a doe and a fawn, and he’s not sure if it’s the way the doe noses at the fawn’s wobbly legs to make sure he’s steady, or if it’s the way the fawn presses into his mother’s side, but suddenly all he can smell is smoke, burning its way down his throat. All he can see is flames surrounding him, closing in. He feels the phantom grip of Sammy’s arms around his neck and the front door, getting smaller and farther away, and his legs, getting tired, so tired.

 

The gun goes off and the bullet hits a tree. The two deer run off and Dean feels his legs shaking, tears rolling hot and fast down his cheeks. His father shakes his head and scoffs, turning to return to the cabin and leaving Dean to collect himself, but he doesn’t. He curls up on the forest floor, hands shaking when he reaches up to wipe away the tears. They’re shaking so badly that he isn’t able to. Instead he lets them drop, instinctively curling them around himself and it feels like the bullet hit him and not the tree and now, now he has to keep everything inside.

 

For a second, he swears he can feel Cas’ arms around him again, and wiping away his tears and Cas’ low voice murmuring “it’s alright, it’s alright, Dean. Sleep.”

 

Dean sleeps on the forest floor with Cas protecting him, and when he wakes up, it is sunrise. He treks back to the cabin and John has already packed everything away, and is waiting in the Impala with a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

 

“Get in,” he grunts, and Dean obeys because he’s already upset his father enough, and he knows the consequences if he does it again.

 

The drive back is quiet and tense and Dean rolls his window down because the air in the car is still and suffocating but rolls it back up quickly when his father snaps at him.

 

Cas is waiting on his own front porch when they pull up. He’s got a book on his lap, but he shuts it when he sees Dean, a smile spreading across his face.

 

The smile falters when he see John’s face, falls completely when he sees Dean’s. Dean looks at his dad once and John scowls before nodding, “be back before you’re missed,” and Dean thinks maybe he could stay at the Novak’s forever, if that were really the case.

 

Cas holds Dean tightly when they’re lying in his bed and talking about the things they want to do, and the places they want to see.

 

“The Taj Mahal,” Dean says, because he’s thirteen and that’s the farthest from Kansas he can think.

 

Cas nods thoughtfully, chin bumping against Dean’s hair. He doesn’t answer for a second.

 

“The stars.”

 

“What?” Dean asks. And he laughs, but he thinks maybe, maybe he knows what Cas means. Cas thinks Dean does, too, because he doesn’t elaborate. They fall asleep like that, breathing in sync and intertwined, and dreaming about the stars.

*

 

Dean is sixteen when he realizes he’s in love with Castiel. Cas is reading, curled up on the window bench Lucifer had built for him when he had complained for almost a month that he had nowhere to read in peace. It’s raining outside, and Cas has his knees tucked underneath him, reading glasses tipping off the bridge of his nose.

 

He is making coffee, because it’s only been an hour since they woke up, even though it’s already noon. Cas doesn’t hear him approach, or if he does, he doesn’t react.

 

Dean drops the coffee.

 

It’s not like it came as any surprise. He’s been in love with Cas since he was born, he thinks sometimes. When he can feel Cas’ movements, like fireworks beneath his skin. But the full force of it, of what they have, but never show, just hit him. He could kiss Castiel right now, and it wouldn’t change a thing. Except that he would be kissing Castiel, instead of just watching Cas read and thinking about doing it.

 

Cas’ head jerks at the shattering of ceramic and he lifts an eyebrow. “Dean, you and coffee are my two favorite things, and you’ve just denied me one.”

 

Dean nods wordlessly, bending to pick up the mess, but Cas huffs. He shuts his book and sets it aside, reaching out for Dean. “Leave it,” he says, and it’s not a request, but it’s soft and warm and full of something. “Lucifer is used to picking up after Gabriel; I see no reason why he should be so opposed to cleaning up either of our messes.”

 

Lucifer, who had caught the end of that as he walked down the stairs, arms full of laundry, says, “I could think of a few very good reasons.”

 

“Quiet, brother dearest, or shall I finally force you to open up about where exactly Michael has been sleeping lately.”

 

Cas chuckles at the blush that creeps up Lucifer’s neck as his brother hurries to put away the clothes and pick up the shattered mugs.

 

Castiel’s arms are still outstretched to Dean and he makes a noise of protest. Dean swallows, because this isn’t new, but it is. And he doesn’t think he can lie against Cas, feel him breathe and feel his heart beating and feel him warm and soft and content to have Dean settled beside him when Dean himself feels like this.

 

He goes anyways, because it’s Cas, his Cas, and he’s totally, totally whipped.

 

Cas shifts so Dean can squeeze beside him. It’s a tight fit, both of them on the single seat, but it’s familiar. Cas cards his fingers through Dean’s hair, pausing slightly when Dean tenses.

 

“Dean?”

 

“Cas.” Dean mumbles and turns his face to press it into Castiel’s chest, praying Cas can’t see the flush of his face.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

And that’s when it really hits him. That’s when something settles in his chest, warm and alive and thrumming against his skin. Because Cas’ first thought was about him. It’s new and strange and he doesn’t quite want to believe it, but the concern in Cas’ eyes makes him. Castiel cares.

 

What a notion, and one he hadn’t thought of before.

 

“Dean?” Cas asks again, and Dean’s gaze slides from peeking up into Cas’ eyes to watching him carefully, eyes glancing down to his lips and back again.

 

“Cas,” Dean says again, but his voice is soft and open and he knows Cas knows. He knows Cas has probably always known, like he has.

 

So they kiss, and Dean was right. It’s like nothing has changed. They kiss for a while, slow and unhurried and Cas has a fascination with tugging Dean’s bottom lip between his own and _sucking_ and Dean can get on board with that real fast. Then, when Cas finally pulls away, Dean realizes he’s still bordering on sleepy and neither of them have had coffee yet, so he pulls Cas to his feet and drags him up the stairs.

 

They sleep, more entangled than ever before, warm and sated and content to pass soft kisses and whispered secrets until unconsciousness takes them.

 

“Why?” Dean asks, when they wake for the second time that day, and the sun is setting outside Castiel’s window. It’s strange that one word can have so many meanings, all at the same time. He knows Cas understands, because the arms around his waist tighten, and there are lips brushing across his neck and up to his ear.

 

“Because you thought you were empty,” Cas says, “So I made a home in you, and I proved you were wrong.”

 

Dean rolls over so he’s draped across Castiel and every inch of him is touching every inch of Cas. He doesn’t feel empty anymore, hasn’t for a while. Instead, he feels full, too full. So he kisses Castiel again, and kisses him for long after, and tries to find purchase on the crumbling ground beneath them both. It’s not working, it never has.

 

Dean Winchester has always felt like he’s falling, so it’s a good thing Castiel Novak has wings.

**Author's Note:**

> this is an au of mine and the lovely rosarycrown's and i really wanna write more of it because im surprisingly proud of how this one turned out. i take requests on my tumblr, or you can just stop by and chat: excuseme-mrsourwolf


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